Evidently, that is true.  In a recent blog post (http://www.uspto.gov/blog/director/entry/interviews_and_patent_quality), the patent office claims that when an applicant interviews the examiner the patent quality improves. At first this surprised me.  Thinking about it a little more, however, it makes sense.

When you interview a case, the examiner tends to pay more attention and so the case will tend to be better searched and examined. I would like to see what happens with an in-person interview versus a phone interview.  I suspect the data would be even more compelling.  All the more reason to have more interviews.